


This Is The End

by invisibledeity, Verdin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Bloodletting, Healing, M/M, Purification, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-07 20:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12240258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledeity/pseuds/invisibledeity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verdin/pseuds/Verdin
Summary: Ardyn had prepared everything so beautifully for this, his final reckoning. But much as he's groomed Noctis to deliver him the killing blow, he discovers Noctis has come out of his years of bitter isolation with plans of his own. There's more than one way to get rid of a plague, after all.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Of course Ardyn would be one to listen to such a song.

_This is the end._

Ardyn had been humming this song for days. Nights.

_This is the end, beautiful friend, the end._

Everything had been prepared beautifully. Set to remind the good king of all he had lost. Ardyn himself was not too keen on bodies as decoration in his throne room, but he did not want to change the boy his mind in the very last second, now what a shame that would be, and then, his guests finally arrived, and he welcomed them oh-so-graciously, and little Noct was a good boy and did what he was supposed to do.

_Of our elaborate plans, the end_

_Of everything that stands, the end…_

Only then the foolish boy messed up.

 

Ten years was more than enough time to come up with a better plan. Noctis has walked through this final moment so many times in his mind. He had been expecting Ardyn to greet him with a smile, and a taunt or two. He had not been expecting the bodies hanging in the throne room. It made him shake to the bone, it brought the loss into agonising sharpness – still so close, _still so close_ after all this time - but it didn’t dissuade him from his change of plan. If anything, it only made him more dedicated. The final Royal Arm summoned, ready to drive through his ancestor’s blackened core, and yet, he stayed his hand.

        The blow, when it came, struck Ardyn below the heart, piercing his left lung instead. Enough only to make him stumble, wheeze out in short breath. Not enough to kill him. Noctis stood over the gasping, clawing form, and fancied his own smile was beginning to take on that same family resemblance. The blood pooling on the ground was such a deep ruby black colour, and Noctis realised all those years in isolation were having a curious effect on him. He craved _more_ of that sight.

        ‘I heard the Kings of old speak to me while I was locked within the Crystal,’ he began, letting his voice take on some of those highborn airs he had heard before in his father’s voice, and yes, even in Ardyn’s. ‘They told me about a way to purge daemons from a person. Make them _bleed_. Heh. I’m sure you’ve tried it before. But,’ he said, sighing, stepping closer, ‘can’t hurt to try again, can it?’

 

The song was gone. Almost gone. Almost done.

_Father, yes son, I want to kill you_

Only he would not.

And for the first time in ages, Ardyn Izunia, copious teller of tales and taunts, was lacking words for three long, laboured breaths.

His right, bereft of his sword and two of his fingers, barely managed to rise, to touch the blade in his chest, welcoming it into him, begging silently to this whole damn bloodline to _touch his heart only once make him do it tell your idiot son_ while the boiling tar inside was already starting to mend what was broken beyond repair.

 _No no no stupid child now do it now do it now_ and the young King's voice barely reached his mind, but those eyes, glowing like rubies and coals from the wrath of the Five, those burnt through the haze, and he laughed, a desperate, wet noise that made him spit parts of himself, and he _understood_.

 

Noctis watched Ardyn stumble to the ground, knees hitting the concrete first in an unimpressive, dulled thud, sounds all muted and seeming somehow insignificant in the light rain. A blistering, roiling feeling just below his skin as he looked on; blood, rising to the surface of his skin, and it made him almost ecstatic, on the point of bliss just witnessing the pain and confusion his cruel twist of the hand wrought.

 _This is not what was ordained, but it is how I shall end it_.

        Ardyn was struggling to rise, but failing miserably, and Noctis took the opportunity to sink to his knees before him, reverently, straight-backed and regal so that he looked far taller, grander, more in control, than the shuddering, shivering mess of a man before him. He reached a hand out to tilt Ardyn’s face upward towards his own, thumbing over the dirt and grime from the battle that decorated his chin.

        A small smile from the Chosen King, and he wrenched the sword out from its stuck position below Ardyn’s heart. Blood gushed out in its wake, and Noctis revelled in the pained cry that followed.

        ‘Shh… I doubt it’ll take that long. I mean, you may be a daemon, but the average man of your size has what, eight, nine pints of blood?’

        His voice was calm, measured, dangerous. Seemingly in control. And yet, inside his head echoed a whirlwind of voices. Images. Thoughts. Years and years spent in the Crystal’s unending gaze. The scrutiny. The loneliness.

        Ardyn was still gasping in ragged breaths – _gods_ , he looked so _pained_ – and this irritated him. So he gripped Ardyn’s shoulder, and whispered close to his ear.

        ‘Yeah, I know you’ve suffered too. I know it’s lonely. But you… you failed your task all those centuries ago and I have to suffer for it?’ His voice, pitching upwards into a more chaotic register, until he was practically yelling. ‘Why? Why couldn’t you just have been stronger?’

        His other hand moved to grip Ardyn’s other shoulder, and he held on and shook, suddenly fragile, childlike before his ancestor. The moment, short and vulnerable, passed like a breeze, and Noctis pushed his too-long hair from his eyes and breathed deeply. On the exhale he summoned the Trident of the Oracle. It should still hold some remanent force of Luna’s unsullied healing powers. And in _his_ hands, well, wasn’t that the only way this would work? He raised the trident until the prongs nestled underneath the lowest of Ardyn’s ribs.

        ‘This is taking too long.’

 

 _Nononono_.

This was not how it was _supposed_ to be, this is not how the fallen King had imagined it in all those long nights, and he murmured it under his breath.

_Didn't they tell him the truth? Not even now? Of course not, never would, never could. This is taking too long._

The boy with the broken eyes had spoken again, and Ardyn tried to focus on the face, the beautiful, even face, his own face, and he tried to answer, to _agree_.

‘Yes. Way too long,’ but what came out was barely more than a hiss and a gurgle.

 

Golden dust gathered up around him as he pressed the prongs of the trident deeper, threatening to pierce, to spill yet more black blood. Threads the colour of bright sunflower petals, intertwining and radiating with their own internal light amid the stormy, overcast Insomnian skies.

        The golden light gathered, glowed stronger, almost sounded like it was singing, as Noctis summoned his strength and slowly, precisely, drove the trident deep into Ardyn’s body. His eyes were closed, and a soft smile played on his lips as he felt the resistance of ribs and viscera.

        He leaned in. Planted a tender kiss on Ardyn’s forehead. Kept his lips pressed against his skin as he pulled out the trident oh so slowly. _He’s old, and his skin, his skin is so cold._

 _Won’t be long now_.

        Splashes upon his thighs, and the creeping sensation of saturation. Blood, sticky as tar, decorating his raiment, and he wore it proudly, this evidence of his act.

 

It _hurt._

Ardyn Lucis Caelum, through his long life, through his long suffering at the hands of so many, had known a thing or two about pain. He had screamed and howled and cried, often enough, but this was...

_Delightful._

_Pure._

_And it hurt so much._

It was not his pain that took him away, it was the myriad of tiny voices, screaming in agony, all those faceless ones that lived in him for eternities, and each of them was sharing its decay with him. Clawing into him, trying to hold on this trusted vessel, this mortal realm where they were _bound to be_ , ripping pieces and parts out of the complex tapestry that was Ardyn Izunia.

Until there was nothing left.

 

 _Lucis Caelum, Lucis Caelum_ , echoing in the air all around him. Those same ghostly echoes Noctis had heard all those years in Angelgard, those very same. The chant that tied him to Ardyn, so deeply, growing stronger with each grain of Starscourge that dissolved from the Accursed’s body. The flesh beneath his fingers shuddered, betraying the man’s lightheadedness from blood loss. Ardyn Izunia was dying, and Ardyn Lucis Caelum was becoming unearthed.

        Noctis redoubled his focus. Pulled up more of that holy light from the depths of that no-space it resided in. Felt like drawing spaghetti through a sieve, and he could even feel some of the dust residue coat his soul, left behind like sleep clustered in the corners of the eye on waking.

        The daemons were resisting, he could see it in the desperate amber eyes that stared up at him imploringly. He could feel it in the tug at his hand that grasped the trident’s grip. A decade of crazed determination was not enough to stand against thousands of years of daemonic fury, but then, he had the Oracle’s power on his side. One last gift bestowed upon him.

        But if he was not careful, Ardyn would die here, and Noctis’s loving revenge would be ruined. No, only Ardyn’s revenge would be ruined tonight. He kept his jaw set, his mouth a tight, grim line as he focussed. Used the golden light to reach deep inside himself and carve out a tiny piece of his own heart. Time inflated, bubbled in silvery glory, as the little piece flowed through into Ardyn and made him worthy of the name _Lucis_ once more. A tiny gasp. There. That was enough to keep the man on the brink of life for now.

        The sticky, putrid tar was flowing away across the asphalt like a tide receding. Fleeing from the True King’s light.

 

_No._

_No._

_NO!_

_Don't leave me alone..._

And then there was none.

  

Noctis brushed back Ardyn’s messy, matted red hair and hushed his shivering, exhausted form.

        ‘We’re not done yet. Come back to the throne room.’

        And, with the fallen Accursed in quiet, mind-numbing obeisance behind him, he walked on down the hall.

  

_It was nice to follow for once._

_Ride the King's highway._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last battle is decided, and its outcome is unsuspected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended hearing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjI2J2SQ528, because for some reason, my head was full if it / Verdin

The vial was empty. Everything he was had spilled, and Ardyn felt strangely serene. The King would ask him if he was sorry for what he did, and he would shake his head, because it was true, and the King's wrath would shake the foundations of this temple and finally destroy this graven image, and there would be peace.  
    He was smiling.  
  
The white fuzz in Noctis’s head threatened to reach fever pitch by the time he returned to the throne room. There, just as Ardyn had left them before their final battle had begun, were the unconscious bodies of his three dearest friends, looking for all the world like babes sleeping soundly.  
    “Your first task,” Noctis murmured, grabbing hold of Ardyn’s upper arm and dragging him forward to face his consequence, “is to revive them.”  
    A gasp which sounded more like a gurgle, bubbling up from Ardyn’s breathless lungs. An attempt at speech. That irritating smile that had decorated the man’s face only seconds earlier did not drop away entirely, merely became more solemn in nature. Some arcane knowledge tickled the back of Noctis’s mind and he _knew_.  
    “Yeah, I’m aware they’re not going to wake up instantly once you do it. I get that it takes time. Just do as I say, Fallen King.”  
    The words gave him power, and went some distance to lessening the chaos rolling around in his own skull. Turn down the volume, turn it down and calm the storm.  
    Ardyn had been the storm in Noctis’s mind for so long now, and he was determined to watch the clouds dissipate, to watch the fury turn to endless soft veils of harmless rain.  
    His hand gripped tighter, unforgiving but understanding eyes watching his ancestor, waiting for him to make his move.  
  
The old man - he moved like one, this time, like a creature dead and resurrected for nefarious purposes - tried to move to one of his friends. Prompto. Of course it was Prom.  
    Noct needed to lead him there, the weight of the years catching up with him, and he dropped down heavily next to the lifeless body. A sick cracking of old knees, and for a little while Ardyn just kneeled there, breathing heavily.  
    _Him. Of course him, innocent fledgling, blood on his hands. Maybe it would suffice. How to go at it on this final stage..._  
    Rags and red hair bowing down over the slender body. Bleeding hands caressing the smooth face, tugging at the little wanna-beard.  
  
Noctis watched with a lump in his throat as the one-time kidnapper leaned over his victim of old, his dusted red hair meeting Prompto’s vibrant blond like a blood moon covering the sun. Despite being drained of the Scourge, to the point of being little more than a reanimated corpse, Ardyn was so _alive_ in comparison to Prompto, and as he knelt possessively over that inert body, for a sickening moment it gave the impression that a crime of an entirely different nature might be about to happen. It reopened old wounds for Noctis, brought back the awkward way Prompto had refused to talk about his imprisonment at Ardyn’s hands, and the guilt, oh Shiva, the guilt of taking so long to rescue him.  
    Speaking of wounds…  
    The blood from the four open wounds in Ardyn’s chest was busy squelching from clothes to ground, staining Prompto’s Kingsglaive garb. And then, the bloodied hands on his face. His chin. Touching far too softly.  
    A surge in his heart, and Noctis so badly wanted to kick, to thrust his boot into the soft, tender flesh of Ardyn’s belly, as Ardyn had done not minutes earlier during the fight. But he refrained. Sucked in breath. Let the feeling flow through his heart.  
   There was a reason he had gifted Ardyn that little slice of his heart. There was a reason, and he waited for it to sink in. And right on cue, there came the jolt. A sharp hiss of breath, bloodied fingers retracting to clutch at that sticky, riven chest. Pain, but not the physical sort. _Feeling_. Good. The connection was strong enough. This would do.  
    “Just get on with it,” Noctis said, tight-lipped and tensed as he watched the fallen man reel.  
  
“Spoilsport...“  
    It came out like a death rattle, and the cramped hand rose, ever so slowly, remaining fingers outstretched. _Patience, young King._  
    _Now how to go at it? What had done this to them had been taken from him, and he could not, would not..._  
    Ardyn remained on his knees, breathing. Just breathing.  
    Under all his wrath, the true King felt another feeling dribble into his heart. Tiny beads of despair.

  
It was a shock, that reaction, and it stung. Noctis hadn’t expected to _feel_ things in return, but there it was. Didn’t matter. He could live with it.  
    But there was something about the way Ardyn knelt there, all haggard and spent, that reminded him far too much of himself when his legs used to fail him. When his spine lit up his whole body with fire. That same vulnerability. And on a deep level, he did understand.  
    That fact teetered on the edge of his skull and he quickly turned it to controlled anger. Kept pushing, asking for the impossible. And if Ardyn didn’t comply, didn’t manage to _find a way around this problem_ like he himself had been forced to do so many times when the power was taken from him, then he would have to get creative.  
   “Why hesitate?”  
  
_Hesitate. Heh. He had fallen and could not get up, and it is all your fault. But maybe... just like in the old days..._  
    Ardyn let himself drop, just fall to the side where Titan would have him.  
    _Inhale. Breathe in the remains of what you once were. Let them run through you and somebody else deal with it for once._  
    It looked like the tiny spark of life that still had been there just left the older Lucis Caelum. He melted into a puddle of patterns and blood, eyelids fluttering.  
    _Drink in, drink in, spit out, spit out..._  
    Tiny black specks rose from the sleeping bodies, drifting through the still air like motes of dust and ashes, settling down on scarves and blood-soaked fabric. Vanishing there.  
  
 At first the feeling was warm as Noctis looked on, sharing the sensation of healing with the fallen king. Then all at once, a raw stab like poison nestling in his guts. His throat seized with the shock of it, his nose flaring. It tasted… bitter, like some arcane herbal remedy. Tongue feeling at once tacky on the roof of his mouth.  
   Ardyn was… reabsorbing whatever foul magic he had smothered his friends with.  
    It was somewhat cathartic just to watch. But he had to remind himself, again and again, that any pain he felt was worth it.  
    The scratching tone that had taken to tickling Noctis’ senses while isolated in the Crystal returned, a wry, jocular voice that told him _no, this isn’t enough. not yet, not yet._  
    _Ardyn has not even begun to feel you yet…_  
    A teasing, forceful press of Noctis’ boot upon Ardyn’s upper arm as he lay, yielding, before him. Just enough to remind him who held the aces here, just enough to keep him in line. More, yes, further and _gods, for the love of all that is holy just ignore the rending pain of that poison mirrored in your soul while he does it…_  
   The miasma started to lift. The sounds of the living began to stir.  
  
Ink spilled from hidden wounds, drawing spirals into the blood of the Fallen King. His old friends would not remain with him, not even now, when he invited them in. They _would not stick_ , golden light like oil between them and him. Luna's late blessing. Luna's curse.  
    Tiny droplets of ink collected outside the pooling crimson, shivering, scared, and started to flee, hurrying away into the dark cracks between the stones.  
    _I'm doing good, tell me I'm doing good, my beloved, I still can..._  
    Ardyn's lips moved in a prayer to someone who had long since left him. For now, there was just emptiness inside, sweet moments of oblivion. Bliss. Then utter exhaustion, while the three men found their way into peaceful dreams.  
  
_They’ll remain asleep for a while longer._  
    Noctis was aware of this, and the scratching at his soul lessened slightly as he watched the gentle rise and fall, rise and fall of his companions’ chests.  
    Satisfied that the man had done his job, Noctis released the pressure. Crouched down beside Ardyn, watching curiously the slithering away of the inky darkness until all that remained was a sootlike residue. An unwavering finger, dragged through it. He crumbled the material between finger and thumb. A moment, then disintegrating to nothing.  
    For a second he almost wanted to thank him. _But wait, that’s not how this works._  
    Instead, Noctis leaned over Ardyn, almost like the way he had done to Prompto mere minutes ago, and his eyebrows softened.  
    “That’s a start,” he murmured. And he wiped the pooling sweat from the tired man’s forehead, and lifted him in his arms.  
    It would have been a struggle if not for the raw adrenaline from the fight. At this point Noctis was running on his own rage, fear and _\- yes, you should probably just say it, shouldn’t you -_ psychosis. He had energy enough. And while Ardyn was not a small man, there only lay a meagre few metres between them and the throne.  
    Back to the seat of power.  
    Noctis cast his eyes back up to the cupola, the ornate dome where Luna’s body had hung. And his father. And Clarus, and Nyx. Again, the bile in his stomach, settling in alongside Ardyn’s pain, and he thought of the chains.  
    Had Ardyn intended to give him such ideas? Perhaps not.  
    But then, perhaps such perverse notions _ran in the family,_ so to speak.  
    Noctis took pause, the broken and defeated man still in his arms, and wondered how difficult it would be to summon chains of his own.  
  
The heap of cloth in his arms mumbled languorously, giving into the unconversant feeling of being carried. Of having _no way out and being alright with that._  
    _Bless me, my King. But then, you already did._  
    The tiny spark of himself Noctis had given him filled the hollowness inside so wonderfully. If he understood what he did there? Or was he so overly full with worry and rage and that strange feeling Ardyn barely remembered as _love_ that he would not miss it? He tried to reach up, marveled for a second at his broken hand, severed fingers already regrowing, slower than usual. How did the golden boy tend to say? _This is wrong_ , but he was not able to tell why.  
    Trembling fingers, cold as ice, touched the royal cheek like a magnificent relic, and as amber eyes followed those blue ones, both tinged with madness, Ardyn fathomed the wishes of his King.  
    "Wish for it," he whispered. "So very easy."  
  
Noctis heard the words, divined their meaning. Felt, behind the larvikite walls, the rustling and straining of enchanted metal ready to materialise. A flash of familiarity lancing his heart, and that did not come from his own memories… _oh, how, for Ardyn, this would not be the first time these halls have tortured him_. He did not care for batting away the reaching fingers at his cheek - there was comfort in that feeble touch. _It must be hard, so hard, to feel like this again._  
    But what must happen _will_ happen. And this was the point. Didn’t matter how bad he felt about what he was about to do, and besides, hadn’t Ardyn felt exactly the same?  
    The surging in his heart said _oh, yes, indeed it is so._  
    And so it must be. Noctis made his wish, and the arches of the grand old room warped, twisted in space, let a rattling furore of heavy metals and iron dust through the shimmering haze of kaleidoscopic light that descended. Noctis pivoted, smooth and decisive, until he was stood back to the throne, his exhausted ancestor held out before him like a gift. The chains snaked their way down and around, gathering at his beckoning like faithful pets, and Noctis was overcome by the unexpected urge to pat at the top link of the nearest one, as if it were alive.  
    Perhaps it was.  
    The elemental chains, servants of the Royal Court, bore Ardyn’s form up in their hard-linked clutches, suspending him in a cruel echo of the illusions of Luna, Regis and the others that Noctis had seen on entering. Didn’t need much restraint, not when the man was so prone and pliant.  
    He sighed. Gripped Ardyn’s shaggy hair hard with loving grace, pulled his neck back into a position that doubtless strained. Not unnecessary. Felt good. He leaned in, whispered,  
    “What you did, you can’t take it back.”  
    Ardyn simply looked up at him, eyes heavy-lidded.  
    “You _killed_ them,” Noctis said, voice trembling at the end of the sentence. The scratching at his mind again, awkward now it was filled with _care_. He didn’t want that, no, couldn't have _sympathy_ like this until he was done, done punishing…  
  
The slightest shake of the red-haired head.  
    _No. I did not. None of them. Not in the strictest sense of the word._  
    "Looks like," he managed, but his heart was not into it.  
    _Sorry about your Oracle. She knew it was unavoidable. It is what the Prophecy said. Sweet girl. Too obedient for her own good. We had tea once, you know?_  
    He groaned as the chains pulled at his sore muscles, lacking the energy to keep his face. No need for it now. So this was how it felt? Of course, it was. He remembered. He had gone through worse. Always had. Focus on that tiny spark of light inside. Focus on the beautiful, worn face before him.  
    _I wish this road could have been straight and pleasant, my beloved King._  
  
A bristling hit Noctis’s skin, all fire like capsicum rubbed in to tender flesh, and he thought about all the days with Luna that never were, all the missed opportunities to tell his father how much he cared. The life he should have had, _and don’t you think about the fact that Ardyn is the same, don’t pay attention to that._  
    _Neither of us asked for this,_ he thought, _but don’t you dare look at me and deny that your actions ended it for them._  
    He struck Ardyn. Felt the satisfying crack of brittle bone as his hand hit paydirt along the regal, ruined jaw. He struck again. Eyes aglow with the madness of the power Bahamut had bestowed upon him. Eyebrows knitted upward in frenzy.  
    Ardyn barely made a sound and it wasn’t enough, this wasn’t enough. It took maybe a dozen strikes before Noctis let his hand fall, realising this wasn’t working.  
    The activity had roused him. Burning through his veins. And yet through it all, there was Ardyn, delightfully ruined, shattered and spent but still gazing up at him with such adoration.  
    _Is this love? I never got the chance to figure that much out for myself._  
    Suddenly everything became so intense it sparked tears, and he couldn’t bear the sight before him; it may as well have been the face he pulled in the mirror, back in Hammerhead, weary and drawn and trying to find the strength to face the final battle. But more than that - there was the edge of something dark and massive within Ardyn’s soul, something that had been eviscerated, torn into a pit and left to fester, something that he could now glimpse with the heart that bound them, and he _hated_ it. Wanted to fill it up with something less… less empty.  
    He leaned forward, tears spilling over, and this time his touch was soft. The other hand cupping the base of Ardyn’s neck, steadying the cracked and aching bones there, while their foreheads rested together. Noctis’ frenzied panting had descended into sobs.  
    “I know why you had to do it,” he muttered in short, harsh breaths. “I get that. I… Ugh, _fuck!”_ His hands gripped harder, and he rubbed his forehead against Ardyn’s in an almost affectionate gesture. “I can’t stand it. What we’ve been forced to do.”  
    A small kiss on Ardyn’s forehead now.  
    “I wanted it to hurt. For you to feel what it was like. But… Bahamut already beat me to it, didn’t he?”  
  
Spit and blood and a rueful little whimper while the broken man searched for words.  
   “They all did. And you, my King. Suffering...“ He swallowed hard. _Copper and pain. Don't besmirch him. Not now._ “Suffering for their pleasure. Their _story_.“  
    He leaned into every touch, not even flinching under the impact of Noctis' blows.  
  
Reciprocation came easily now. Noctis planted another soft kiss atop Ardyn’s head, hands trembling at the back of his neck. The tittering voice in the back of his head still screeching, cursing, only now the curses were deflected heavenward.  
    He drew a thumb across Ardyn’s lower lip, palm dragging across sharpness of stubble and again, and it was so much like his own face that for a moment he doubted everything. _Am I back in the Crystal? In Angelgard? No, no, no, that would be too cruel…_  
    But not beyond the Astrals, for sure.  
    Could be, could not be. Pointless to worry. If it was all an illusion, then this, what he was doing right now, would be tantamount to masturbation.  
    He moved his attentions down. Hand searching round Ardyn’s waist, travelling over rags and chain, each touch designed to soften the ache, to lessen the pain. Not time to release those chains, not yet. Not time to lose the control he’d waited so long to have.  
    Lips met the cold hollow of Ardyn’s collarbone and pressed, warm and clement. And he murmured into the blood-stained skin there.  
    “All about their damn story, huh? Well. Don’t think they expected this.”  
  
_What was he doing? This was not what was supposed to happen. That was not what the prophecy...no._  
    It was an eternity since a mortal touched him like this and did so only to fill the deep well of own longing, and it felt so incredibly sweet, so warm, and the Fallen One melted into those tender touches.  
    Opened his mouth, trying to tell the true King what had to be told, unable to do so. He was filled to the brim with a desire that made him overflow, and tears, bright and salty, crawled through the grime on his face.  
    _Tell him. Once in you life, old bastard._  
    “This is not what you wish, my King,“ his own voice breaking into tiny splinters like burnt charcoal.  
  
Ignoring those words and the way they shattered in the air around him, Noctis continued on, hands gripping a little less softly. He felt almost indignant - _How can you dictate what I want now, after all this?_ \- but the tears cutting through the dirt on Ardyn’s face, and the ache in his shared heart, made him acutely aware this was all performance. He had worked his way through the battlements, and words were all that Ardyn had left.  
    Something scared and small lashed out within his heart. Something undeniably, painfully Ardyn’s. He heard it speak a more personal tune beneath those selfless words the man had just uttered: _This is not supposed to happen… I deserved pain… death… no…_  
    He could no longer envisage a world where the plot didn’t have to follow the Astrals’ cruel machinations, could he?  
    “How long’s it been…” Noctis began, purple-tinged eyes searching Ardyn’s glistening gold ones, “since someone has done this?” He didn’t give him time to respond - the question was never about that. Instead, he kissed him. Just a kiss, nothing more, but it was far softer than it had any right to be. The masochist in both of their souls, screaming, because _this was all wrong_ , and as before, he ignored it.  
  
The golden eyes were wide open, while behind them a world shattered, way more thoroughly than any torture, any war would have accomplished it.  
    _This is not happening_ and he wanted to pray, wanted to make promises to someone larger,higher than him, but there was no one there anymore, none but the _one true King_ , _his_ King, and he just...

Ardyn Lucis Caelum closed his eyes and gave in to the kiss, because this did not matter now.

 


End file.
